PSA supports progressive thinking on capital gains tax

The Public Service Association (PSA) has stated its support
for the campaign launched yesterday by Tax Justice Aotearoa
New Zealand for capital gains taxation to be included in the
Government’s move to undertake serious tax reform.

"If
the Government is serious about implementing a major set of
long overdue tax reforms then a capital gains tax can’t be
left out of those," say PSA national secretaries Glenn
Barclay and Kerry Davies.

"When the final report from the
Tax Working Group (TWG) was released in February we
commended the group’s finding that the inconsistent
treatment of capital gains only serves to perpetuate the
unfairness of the tax system, leaving us with a society
where wealth is increasingly concentrated in a smaller
percentage of the population.

"Introducing a capital gains
tax is an important mechanism for broadening our nation’s
future tax base and to ensure that our public finances have
been designed well enough to sustain and grow decent public
services.

Glenn Barclay: "As a union that advocates for
stronger public and community services as one of our
strategic goals, the PSA has had a longstanding involvement
in promoting public debate and progressive thinking about
issues such as tax.

"In 2017 we published our booklet Ten
Perspectives On Tax and on 28 March this year we organised a
seminar where TWG member and CTU economist Bill Rosenberg
talked with independent author Max Rashbrooke about the
TWG’s Future of Tax report".

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